


Outside Of Everything Else

by jinxes (bobbemorse)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Pizza Parlour, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 06:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4736915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbemorse/pseuds/jinxes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott needs this new job to go well, Boyd makes the best dough (probably. at least in this town he does.) and Danny just really, really likes pizza. Even though he never buys any. It may be the personnel at the parlour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Outside Of Everything Else

"Mom," Scott says and bows his head to catch her eyes even though she's stubbornly staring down at the piece of paper as if she could change the numbers.   
"It's gonna be okay Scott. Don't worry," she says and she sounds so sure that Scott knows he would have believed her if he was still five years old. Scratch that. He would still believe her if he was twelve. But he's not twelve. He knows what the numbers mean.

"I was just gonna say that you can bang your head against the table if you want to." The silent little laugh that follows immediately makes Scott's heart a little lighter. Then his mom takes her elbows off the table and lets her head fall without the extra support.   
"I have to get a job," Scott says determinedly and squares his shoulders, ready for the protest that is undoubtedly going to come. Melissa lifts her head and rests it on her arms, looking up at him.  
"You already have a job," she says.

"It doesn't pay enough. And I can't ask Deaton for a raise, that wouldn't be fair."   
"But Scott, you love it there and you would have to cut down on your hours... Besides you're doing so good in school..."  
"Yeah but it's senior year," he interrupts and he knows he has to convince her to let him do this because she's already doing so much it's kind of insane.   
"...I have less classes than ever and Stiles can help me. Or, uh, I'll find myself a tutor..." She smiles and he trails off because smiling is always a good sign, right? 

"A tutor's probably a better idea," she says and he smiles back because her smile has always given him the feeling that they can do anything.

*

He gets an interview at Hales' Pizza Parlour and is thrilled about it for approximately three seconds before the panic sets in.   
"This is the perfect job," he says and points to the computer so Stiles can see the opened E-Mail.   
"But what if I don't get it? I have to get it." Stiles stands in front of him and puts his hands on Scott's shoulders.   
"Hey, hey! And you will. You just... have to make a not terrible impression." Scott looks at him, helpless.   
"How do I do that?" 

Stiles spreads his armes in an erratic motion and nods.  
"Okay, okay, uh, sit down." He pulls out Scott's desk chair and taps on the seat twice signaling Scott to sit.   
Scott sits down.

Stiles takes his computer and types furiously before he shows Scott the screen.   
"This," he says and points from the screen to Scott and back.  
"This is where you want to go, okay? Do you know who runs the place?" Scott hesitates and suddenly feels terribly unprepared.   
"No...?" 

Typing.   
"Okay. Wow. So, you know the Hales, right?" The name sparks something but before he can come up with an answer Stiles is already talking again.   
"Dude, the crazy rich people that could probably own the whole town but instead just invest in a few shops here and there, most likely so every kid of theirs gets their own business one day?"   
"Right, okay, but they just own the place, right? They're not gonna interview me." Stiles nods, his attention on the screen again.  
"Probably not, although, hold on... One of the younger Hales is the manager. I'm guessing you're gonna have to face him." 

*

Fortunately Derek Hale does not turn out to be like his picture on the website looks.   
He doesn't smile when greeting Scott but he isn't unfriendly either, in fact during the interview Scott concludes that the almost friendly to almost smiling looks start to match the neutral to slightly skeptical ones. 

Scott thinks he's doing pretty good, too. Never having met Derek before he doesn't have the same problems he has in school regarding talking to, well, people in general. He's told (by Stiles, mostly) that he lets other people his age walk over him too easily, taking everything they throw at him, never seeming to find it in himself to give back.   
Not that Stiles is any better, he just finds more pleasure in pointing it out in a very sarcastic way. 

When Scott brings up his asthma he just gets a sympathetic "I don't think that'd be a problem" without a trace of pity to be found. 

It's enough for Scott to leave the interview with a good feeling. The smile on his face being a genuine one he swings open the door to the little room Derek lead him to to talk in private with enthusiasm, promptly running into someone.   
Stumbling back Scott thanks god for the missing sound of something hitting the floor and looks up to find himself standing in front of Vernon Boyd, looking at him rather puzzled. 

"Hey Boyd," he says, smiling, before he remembers that they're not technically speaking to each other. Ever, really. Boyd sits behind him in English class, though so Scott guesses that it's okay for him to know his name.   
"Hi," Boyd says, seeming a little dumbfounded by Scott's sudden appearance. Taking in the apron he's wearing Scott stuffs his hands into his pockets and asks the obvious question:  
"You work here?" 

"Yeah," he says and Scott finds it hard to figure out if he doesn't want to talk or if this is just as uncomfortable for him as it is for Scott or if he just genuinely doesn't really care. Just when the silence stretches into uncomfortable Boyd adds:  
"Did you come here for an interview." 

Scott lets out a little laugh of relief that he immediately regrets.   
"Uh, yeah, yeah, I applied for the open position for a counter person." Boyd nods and Scott takes it as a good sign.  
"What do you do?"   
"I'm the dough roller," he says, perfectly serious and not at all like he's delivering a joke so Scott is pretty sure that the confused look on his face is offensive somehow. 

"That's literally the name," Boyd explains but he doesn't seem hostile at all anymore.  
"I'm making the pizza dough." Scott lifts his head and looks Boyd straight in the eyes for the first time, nodding and smiling approvingly.  
"That sounds... important." 

And then Scott sees Vernon Boyd smile for the first time since he's met him.   
"Yeah," he says with that grin that Scott can't quite interpret.   
"I'm really good at it, too."

*

He gets the job.   
His mom hugs him and Stiles high fives him and Scott is so glad he thanks Derek five times over the phone, until he can practically feel him staring at Scott quietly amused through the phone so he hangs up. 

When he goes to school the next day he stops dead in his tracks about three steps in front of the table Boyd sits at. Boyd doesn't look up.   
With a deep breath Scott takes four steps forward, reconsiders and turns around, only to be met by a pair of very calm, unreadable eyes.   
"I got the job," he says without any greeting whatsoever which he regrets as soon as the sentence makes it out of his mouth. 

He likes Boyd.   
He doesn't know him very well and he isn't particularly sure if Boyd even spares him a second thought every once in a while. But there is something about Boyd that seems... steadfast. It seems good. 

Boyd nods slowly.  
"Congratulations," he says and that's all it takes to make a smile appear on Scott's face. Then he just continues looking at Scott, not seeming disconcerted in the least, whereas Scott is glad when he sees Stiles waving from the other end of the cafeteria, stopping shortly to give Danny and Jackson, who turn towards the irritating motion, at the table in the middle of the room a thumbs up. 

Scott can't see their faces but he's guessing that Jackson is wearing an expression that is his equivalent of flipping Stiles the bird and that Danny is probably looking at him with mostly confusion but also a quiet look of doubting Stiles' sanity.   
So, Scott decides on a:  
"Alright, see you then." and a last smile before he crosses the room and sits down opposite to Stiles.

"What were you two talking about?" The emphasis on you two makes Scott frown a bit but sometimes Stiles just talks and maybe he means it but he also forgets about it the next second. So Scott shrugs and opens his juice.   
"He works at the parlour. I told him I got the job." Stiles actually stands up to look over Scott's head to the table where Boyd sits.

"Seriously? I would have thought he'd work at an auto shop or something..." Scott gives a quiet laugh.  
"If he did you'd know," he says and Stiles sits back down to glare at him.  
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean? I would never take my baby to a shop where they'd just take her apart like she's just another disposable machine!" Scott's laughter is louder this time.  
"Come on dude you still lurk around the shops all the time to hear how to fix things." Stiles snorts disdainfully.

"I resent that and you can't prove a thing." 

*

It actually goes a lot better than Scott expected. Derek has started introducing him to everything three days ago so Scott already picked up some things from watching the other employees do their job.

He's on his feet constantly, taking orders, serving and keeping a particularly persistent and quick toddler away from the kitchen without ever losing the smile on his face. Even so his asthma stays in the usual bounds and Scott is glad because he doesn't know what he'd do if it were any other way. 

Boyd's working the same shift as Scott and when they get off he walks alongside Scott to where he parked his motorcycle before he takes off towards the bus.   
When he gets home Scott throws himself on his bed and groans into the pillow, reaching for the light on his nightstand and buries himself under his blankets, welcoming the warmth that seems to make his bones heavy with sleep so that everything else shifts into the back of his mind. 

He falls asleep with the thought of Boyd smiling at him with something like joy in his eyes when they said goodbye. 

*

He gets used to the pace of his new job relatively quickly, the hours he spends in the parlour fall into place in his usual schedule easily. 

Boyd is the only other employee that goes to his school and that has this many shifts at the same time Scott does. So they make a tradition out of leaving together, making the bad days a lot more bearable.

Apparently, and contrary to Stiles' belief, Boyd is actually capable of carrying on a conversation even though he still doesn't say much. But it gets more comfortable with each day, laying something in Scott to rest. From what he can gather Boyd's primarily lonely. He's surprisingly upfront about it too.

When Scott brings it up because he retells a joke Stiles made the day before and Boyd looks at him for a few seconds before he says:  
"I always wanted to have that." And Scott just stops because he sounds serious and very matter of fact but there is also a note of sadness tinging the sentence.   
"What?"   
"Friends," he says. And then:  
"See you tomorrow Scott."

*

Deaton, of course, understands completely when Scott tells him about the new arrangements.  
"Actually," he says.   
"I met someone who might be able to help out here and there. He could take up the hours you can't fill anymore." Scott eyebrows shoot up but he finds that the knot of a bad conscience in his stomach dissolves. 

"Really, who? Can- can you even afford to pay someone else?" Deaton smiles vaguely (it's a smile Scott is used to, it usually means Deaton's got everything covered.)  
"His name is Isaac Lahey. I'm under the impression that he could use a quiet place like this." 

It's a name that sparks something in Scott. He knows that Isaac's in their grade but from what Scott knows he doesn't do anthing in particular to stand out. More like the opposite actually. He usually cowers somewhere in the middle of the classroom, never raising his hand but also not looking disinterested enough for the teachers to call on him nonetheless.  
If he finds some comfort in the animal clinic it can probably only be good for him.

"That's great then," Scott says. 

*

Danny shows up when Scott's already working at the parlour for four weeks and he's finally got it all figured out. At least at his job. The chemistry homework he's working on – not so much. He's sitting at one of the tables after his shift, like always after an earlier shift, with his hands in his hair and his eyes wide open because maybe, maybe he can figure it out if he stares at it long enough. 

When the bell over the door rings he looks up, though, because his eyes are really starting to hurt. And it's Danny. Scott doesn't think he's ever seen him without any of his friends around, which is really weird now that Scott thinks about it because Danny doesn't seem like he constantly needs friends around for confirmation and someone to high five after he made a particularly dirty joke. 

Today Cora's at the counter as an exception, because apparently this is the equivalent of grounding for the Hales.   
Her eyes roam up and down Danny's body but her face doesn't show any sign of approval or disapproval, even though Scott could easily relate if her mouth were to drop open. Instead she straightens and greets him properly, asking him if he wants to take a seat. 

Danny looks around him and meets Scott's eyes, smiling (with dimples and everything) curtly even though Scott has to look pretty decomposed with paper cluttering the whole table, his hair in disarray and probably an intense expression of panic in his eyes.   
"I think I'm gonna sit over there," Scott hears him say and he doesn't really grasp the meaning of Danny's pointed finger until Danny shrugs his jacket off and slides into the bench next to him and says:  
"Hey Scott." 

Scott decides not to question this very weird choice of seats and instead takes his hands out of his hair to grab as many sheets as he can to make a little room.  
"Hi. Um, I'm really sorry about this." Danny looks at him with pinched eyebrows which immediately manages to make Scott feel stupid.  
"Don't worry about it. You were here first." And when the crinkles between his eyebrows go smooth it startles a laugh out of Scott. 

"So, you have trouble with the task, right?" Danny asks and Scott taps his pencil on the paper in an angry motion.  
"I didn't even get it in class. Harris was kind of too fast for me." He stops for a second.  
"Actually, he's always too fast for me. Until now I managed to learn everything at home but this... I just don't get it." He jabs at the little one in front of the text that is hurting his head for twenty minutes now and lays down the pencil before he destroys the paper. 

Danny shrugs.   
"Yeah, Harris isn't really fair in the way he teaches. But at least you learn the stuff anyway, Jackson just copies everything from me." He grins at the thought and really, the whole dimples thing is just not fair.   
"I got it today, though. You want me to explain it?"

It's a really, really odd question because until now Scott didn't even know that Danny considered him a person he was talking to, even though they're on the same lacrosse team.   
And the truth is that Danny is nice and he treats Lydia better than her own boyfriend and he's really good at lacrosse and on top of that he's also able to manage school with ease.   
So Scott has always assumed that there is a natural distance between Danny and him they wouldn't ever be able to overcome.

Danny asking if he can explain something to Scott is just... not a thing he thought Danny would ever do. 

Nevertheless:  
"That would be awesome. Thank you so much!"

It's when Danny leaves that Scott notices that Danny didn't even order anything.  
Scott fumbles out his inhaler.

*

Danny gets a knack for always showing up at the end of Boyd's and Scott's shift. It's freaking weird. At first it surprises Scott again and again and it always lurs a smile out of him, a startled one, where his eyebrows shoot up and his delight is just so obvious that Stiles would tease him about for sure.   
If he was there. Which he isn't. 

As it turns out Danny is also completely comfortable with Boyd around (in hindsight though, maybe Scott should have expected that one.)  
They meet when Boyd ends his shift, waiting for Scott to finish up when Danny comes in because Scott asked him after lacrosse practice if he could help him out with chemistry again. 

It's a little awkward at first because Scott is expecting Danny to roll his eyes when he invites Boyd to sit with them if he wants to or at least an evasive action that would result in him having somewhere all of the sudden.   
Nothing of the likes happens.

After a while it's actually pretty nice because neither Boyd nor Danny seem to feel the need to jump up at some point in the conversation and start pacing around or make grand statements that just confuse the hell out of Scott, especially when he's trying to study.   
Also, Danny is a lot better at explaining things patiently than Stiles and Boyd is pretty good company for studying because he doesn't seem to get fazed by the most basic questions and instead sits there, seemingly content with kind of (but not really) doing his French homework. 

And then Danny simply doesn't stop showing up.   
He never brings any friends. He never gives a specific reason as to why he's there. But he still slowly starts to invade Scott's life and, as Scott guesses, Boyd's too.

They start to study at Scotts' or at Dannys' when Danny mentions that the table at the parlour really isn't the most comfortable place imaginable (the corner of Boyd's mouth shoots up but he doesn't say anything.) They never go to Boyds' and they don't ask why.   
When they finish up they go to places people from their school won't (i'ts not something they ever talk about) until they sometimes drop studying beforehand alltogether. 

It comes easy.   
But sometimes it hits Scott in the middle of the night when he startles awake and notices that he's not actually curled around Danny while Boyd is breathing into his hair and it makes him go for his inhaler and try to breathe because everything seems more intense in the dark. 

*

It's not until Scott gets his first B+ on a test issued by Harris of all people that Scott forgets basically everything and jumps onto Boyd's back as soon as they get off work just to grab Danny's face over Boyd's shoulders to mash their lips together.   
Danny looks startled but the laughter sits in his eyes and taking all his strength out of that expression Scott slides off of Boyd's back just to look up at him and kiss him too. 

"Well," Danny says and then:  
"Um."   
"I'm good with this," Boyd adds and Danny just quietly grabs his hand. 

Scott has to get out his inhaler.


End file.
